India Travel Club
Adventures & Holidays

TIRUPATHI & TIRUMALA

The ‘holy hill’ of Tirumala, 20 km from its service town of Tirupathi in the extreme south of Andhra Pradesh, is one of the most important pilgrimage centres in all India because of the ancient Vaishnavaite temple of Venkateshwara. This is the god whose picture graces the reception areas of most lodges and restaurants in southern India. He’s the one with his eyes covered (since his gaze would scorch the world) and garlanded in so many flowers that only his feet are visible.
 Tirumala is an engrossing place where you can easily spend a whole day just wandering around. It’s one of the few temples in India which allows non-Hindus into the sanctum sanctorum but, despite this, the place sees very few foreign visitors.
  On the flip side, it hosts an army of pilgrims from all over India and in order to cope with them, everything at Tirumala and at Tirupathi is organised to keep visitors fed, sheltered and moving. Most are housed in special pilgrims’ choultries in both Tirupathi and Tirumala.

Venkateshwara Temple  
Among the powers attributed to Venkateshwara by his devotees is the granting of any wish made in front of the idol at Tirumala. It’s on the basis of such a legend that pilgrims flock to this temple. There are never less than 5000 here at any one time and, in a day, the total is often as high as 100,000, although the average is a mere 30,000. The temple staff alone number nearly 6000!
 Such popularity makes the temple one of the richest in India, with an annual income of a staggering five billion rupees. This is administered by a temple trust which ploughs the bulk of the money back into hundreds of choultries and charities such as home for the poor, orphanage, crafts training centers, schools, college and art academies.
  It’s considered auspicious to have your head shaved when visiting the temple, so it you see people with shaved heads in south India, you can be pretty sure they’ve recently been to Tirupathi – this applies to men, women and children. This practice is known as tonsuring.
  As you face the entrance to the temple, there is a small museum at the top of the steps to the left. Among other things, it has a good collection of musical instruments, including a tabla- type drum called a ubangam!